The present invention relates to theme or amusement parks. More specifically, the present invention relates to managing queue time in attraction lines.
Since the early twentieth century, amusement parks and theme parks have been growing and expanding at a tremendous rate. As parks have expanded, so has the number of guests that attend. While guests have demanded bigger, better, and more elaborate rides, they also require and expect a positive Park experience, which entails progressively shorter waits to enter a ride. In the past, guests have been forced to wait hours in line to ride some of the more popular rides at a Park.
Long ride lines present a myriad of problems for park operators. First, long lines lead to leads to guest unhappiness, which lowers the rate of return visits. Second, long lines can lead to unrealized revenue. For example, while guests come to theme parks primarily for the rides, they also come for secondary attractions, such as restaurants, food stands, carnival games, and souvenir shops. As guests spend more and more time in line, they are unable to spend time and money dining, shopping and playing carnival games.
Methods and systems have been developed to shorten lines and prevent long wait times for guests. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,420 issued to Maeda describes a reservation system that allows patrons or guests to obtain reservations for various rides ahead of time. However, patrons can make an unlimited number of reservations. This can result in earlier patrons reserving all ride time slots leaving only less popular rides for late arriving patrons.
An attempt to manage this problem is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,209 issued to Laval describes a reservation and line management system where patrons are allowed to make reservations for only one attraction at a time. By allowing only one reservation at a time, patrons are unable to schedule their entire day, including time taken for lunch and dinner. Many times, groups will split up and rejoin at a later time during the day. In the Laval patent, patrons can only make schedules one or two hours ahead, because they are limited to one reservation. Moreover, if the only available reservation for a desired attraction is late in the day, the usefulness of this system declines, as the patron may be limited in the number of reservations the patron can make throughout the day.
A further attempt to relieve long lines is described in U.S. Patent Application U.S. 2002/0116235 A1 (Grimm et al.) which describes a system and method of operation that allows guests to purchase advance ticket packages containing e.g., pre-paid parking, reserved times for multiple attractions, reservations for meals, or use of a guest key as a credit or debit card. In addition, the system and separate method of operation allow guests to make reservations for reserved access to attractions, such as rides, live action-shows, etc. or for dining or theatrical shows, etc. However, none of the above description provide guests with an incentive to visit the secondary attractions (e.g., restaurants, food stands, carnival games, and souvenir shops).
Accordingly, to date, there is no suitable system or method to manage theme park ride lines that provides incentive to visit secondary attractions.